Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by wolverine876 1569 days ago
> Generally for most goods markets work really well. There's two intrinsic failure cases: externalities and monopolies.

I agree, but you are omitting two other cases: Equity and availability.

Again, markets are built to serve those who provide the highest profit. That's fine for iPhones, but not for health, safety, education, basic food, and basic shelter. Everyone should have those, regardless of how much profit they provide.

Markets also depend on 'creative destruction', businesses fail and their goods and services go away. That can't happen with healthcare, food, education, safety, and shelter. There are 'food deserts' in poor communities, where people can't get anything but expensive corner-store groceries. We can't have a safety, education, shelter, or healthcare desert (or a food desert).
1 comments
holbrad 1569 days ago
Markets provide availability of goods, as long as you can accept price variability.

I'll reiterate for safety and land I think these things fail for the reason I mentioned originally.

Healthcare I could certainly see working in a mostly market led way, I'm personally from the UK (So extra heretical to say)

Food is a bad example, as availability is ultra high. Fresh produce is scarce in areas due to low demand. Low demand leads to higher prices.

link
wolverine876 1569 days ago
> Markets provide availability of goods, as long as you can accept price variability.

Not if the vendor goes out of business.

> Food is a bad example, as availability is ultra high. Fresh produce is scarce in areas due to low demand. Low demand leads to higher prices.

That's not the case, based on the reports I've seen. What have you seen that supports that?

link
holbrad 1569 days ago
Unless we are in a monopoly situation there are other vendors for common goods.

If a super market goes out of business there are several others though perhaps further away.

The idea of "Food deserts" is around the poor availability of affordable "nutritious" food. There is plenty of food in these food deserts with many different food providers.

So it's not about general food availability, it's around what food is stocked. Which food are stocked is almost completely determined by supply and demand. We know the supply exists, so if there a lack of stock it's due to demand.

What other explanation is there ? A shadowy cabal making sure the poor can't access certain foods ?

link